4.5 stars. Rated R, for dramatic intensity, profanity and violent images
By Derrick Bang
Guy Hibbert’s thoughtful
screenplay has the unsettling intensity of an immaculately crafted stage play.
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| Helen Mirren, as Col. Katherine Powell |
Indeed, I can see this being a great play, even though its
primary characters are spread out across the globe. An imaginative director
could handle that detail, much the way Gavin Hood has choreographed this
big-screen drama with such authoritative snap.
Eye in the Sky is a taut, up-to-the-minute geo-political
thriller that belongs in the company of 1960s Cold War classics such as Fail Safe and Seven Days in May, and more recent efforts such as Thirteen Days and Munich. At its core, Hibbert’s script — which he wrote back in
2008, making it even more cutting-edge — is a study of actions and
consequences: to what degree, if any, a desired end justifies the means to
obtain it.
Hibbert’s approach is what makes
the result so riveting: This is a “process thriller” very much in the mold of
2011’s Margin Call. That film gave us
a talking-heads glimpse of the primary players at a Wall Street investment firm
who, during the course of 24 hours, watch helplessly as their own previous actions
precipitate the 2008 meltdown. You’d think such back-room financial commentary
and analysis would be boring, but that was far from the case; the excellent
cast brought compelling tension to every aspect of writer/director J.C.
Chandor’s script.
As Margin Call was to the 2008 economic crisis, Eye in the Sky is to digital-age drone warfare.
British Col. Katherine Powell
(Helen Mirren), waking early one morning at her cozy home in Sussex, assumes
her decidedly un-cozy duties at a nearby military base. This is likely to be a
crucial day: She has been tracking, for six years, a particularly notorious
British citizen-turned-terrorist — a radicalized young woman — who is expected
to attend a meeting at an Al-Shabaab safe house in a bustling Nairobi
neighborhood.
As a bonus, this target is
expected to be in the company of at least one other terrorist ranked high on
the British/American “most wanted” list.
The developing situation is being
monitored from the sky by a surveillance drone piloted by American soldiers at
Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, and at ground level by Nairobi anti-terrorist personnel.
Facial recognition identification, if such an opportunity arises, will be
confirmed by an American military analyst stationed in Hawaii. All are in
constant contact with Powell.
She, in turn, passes this intel
along to her commanding officer, Lt. Gen. Frank Benson (Alan Rickman, in his final
performance), who is spending the day in a London conference room, where he
shares these same details with upper-echelon British government overseers. The
intention, at every moment, is to follow protocol and chain of command, while
adhering to legal justification.
All these players are assembled
to monitor a pre-approved “capture mission” that will be coordinated by the
Nairobi ground troops. Powell, in charge of the operation, waits only for verification
that her targets have arrived.
